


Absolution

by borlaaq



Series: This Slow Devour [2]
Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Genre: Lilac used female pronouns for the Bazaar because shes gay, Other, mentions the knock but like nothing is canon, the confusing relationship between yourself when theres two and one is real and the other isnt, when you just wanted to write about ur ocs tats and it turned into a lilac character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:53:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21788578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/borlaaq/pseuds/borlaaq
Summary: You gave him three tattoos, but he gave you absolution.
Relationships: Implied Mr Veils/Seeker of Mr Eaten's Name, Lady in Lilac/The Bazaar
Series: This Slow Devour [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1697740
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	Absolution

**Author's Note:**

> alternate title: how many dumb titles can i give emil. i left out the Illiterate Cryptozoologist but just know its one i am DETERMINED to use for him at some point.

The first time you meet him, his eyes are peligin. 

He wanders into your shop on legs fresh off the zee. He's seen something out there and you set out vials of dark ink. It's hard not to have heard the rumors about him, as close as you are to the Bazaar.

"I hear you can do tattoos in the Neathbow?" Asks the Monster-Hunter and his tongue keeps running over his teeth. There's no blood on them but you know that's what he's looking for. He's hungry in a way you know.

"I do. They call you the Fist of the Bazaar, correct?" It's an impressive title. The Masters overlook his hunger because he's willing to follow his targets to Death's Boat. You remember shuddering the first time you heard about how he shoves them off. 

He is dedicated, in the least. You, of all people, know how the Bazaar and her Curators are with secrets. Having someone so naive, so desperate for a place in the world, makes it easy to keep enforcing their wills.

He tenses. "Have we met?"

He wouldn't remember if you had, you think. You say, "No. I'm a friend of the Bazaar, though. Don't fret." 

He doesn't relax. "They call me that. But I'm just a bounty hunter." He's modest and that's strange down here. You wonder how long he will be like this.

"A hard job when death isn't permanent down here," you smile. His name and face are known. His habits will be known next. "A tattoo, then?" 

"An eye. Like they say hides under the Zee." 

You take out your instruments. "Have you seen it?"

"Not yet." 

You have no doubt he will. Already you know he's curious in ways that are dangerous. You ink it into the soft flesh of his inner arm with peligin. Gant flecks the pupil, because he will be consumed soon too.

He's silent as you work, like he's holding his breath. He watches with the same peligin eyes. You are sure they were brown before he got hungry. You wonder how he started.

"Do you dream?" You ask. 

"Even when I don't sleep," he says quietly.

"I'll give you some advice, on the house. When things seem too hard to bare, look to love. Always." 

His eyebrows furrow. "I don't know anything 'bout love "

"No?" You tilt your head. "Nothing about the sacrifice? The feeling of tightness in your chest like you may be drowning? The feeling you get when you remember the stars?"

His breathing hitches. You both fall silent, until finally he replies, "Isn't love dangerous here?"

"Yes. But when has that ever stopped you?" You're talking about yourself but you see something in his eyes that reminds you of yourself. You had been curious like him too once. And you had found the answers in the Game That Stretched To The Stars and you had fallen in love. Every year you return to the Neath. You look to love and add your own stories to her runed spires. 

He doesn't answer. 

After, he pays and leaves a tip. You raise a brow but he leaves before you can ask. He's left you his card, though you never use it. He leaves in the direction of the Forgotten Quarter. You can almost hear him telling the Well his stories.

(No, not you. The you you left behind.)

You see him again before you leave again to the surface, the tattoo is healed but you think you see it blink.

–

The second time you meet him, it's two years later. His hair is turning white, his eyes almost golden. He gives you a candle. It smells like lilacs. He's trying to hide the smell of absinthe on his breath. 

"Have you seen the Vake?" The Vake-Scarred Hunter asks.

"I hear hunters go missing searching for it. I wouldn't dare seek it out." 

He pulls out a crumpled paper. You didn't take him for an artist but it looks like something you would see in a research paper. Messy sketches with too much attention to the wings. You absentmindedly touch the tattoo you gave yourself. The one of a crab. 

There's love in his drawings. Like there's love in your work. 

"A bat," you say evenly. Mr Veils, you think. You've met them in passing, although never without their robes like he's sketched out here. You've read all about it on the hidden undersides of the Bazaar. She keeps even the worst and failed love stories, though they are hidden. You doubt even Veils knows its tale is burned into her carapace, right next to a name that should no longer exist. 

"Please. Can you do it?"

You have turned down many Vake-Hunters but you do it for him. For the love story it will produce.

Wings wrapped around his neck as you know claws have wrapped around it before. You can see the blood from a weeping scar soaking into his shirt. How many times has he died now? And how cruel is fate is to give him eyes you once saw in the Irrigo pools. He's hungry and has lost too much weight. 

Is he the one, you wonder?

When you finish, you hold out a mirror and you swear you see him wipe away tears. You inked the stars of the wings in cosmogone and violant. A feral grin and eyes the speak of intelligence rather than a beast. 

"Yes," he whispers, "That's perfect."

You wonder if Veils will be offended or proud.

–

It's the third time and yet the first. He's soaked from well water, limping. He almost looks like he recognizes you. He's full of love like you are. The real you. 

(You're early.) You say and the real you would feel guilty. Down here, you don't, you can't. He still reminds you of yourself. Would you stop him if you could? Fate and Destiny are such strange things. You had once sought yours too.

The Rapacious Hunter wants answers, of course. You can give them. Just like the Bazaar once gave you.

(No more mysteries.) You tell him. (Mr Candles was forgotten and you must be too. I know what you want – what he wants and what the real me wants. And it's all about love.)

You almost laugh at the look he gives you, somewhere between surprise, joy, and fear. (Oh, hush, I can say it down here. No one can hear us. It's just you and me. I'm no one and you're even less than that.) 

You baptise him in Irrigo. You don't need to take anything, he'll leave behind a shade like you. His future is already set in stone. But you will make it so he can't back out, can't turn around. The Masters will know. But will they remember after they've seen him long enough to stop him? 

(Perhaps, in time, he came to like being The Drowned Man. You're more alike him than any other.) 

You had met Candles and you had read the tragedy until your eyes burned from the Correspondence etched on the back of the one you love (not the you down here. The you down here doesn't love her). You had cried reading it and she had cried with you. She hadn't meant for it to happen like this, but she had no other options.

_ Perhaps Spices had been right _ , the Bazaar had told you,  _ murder makes wonderful love stories.  _ She's tired. You wish you could help more. 

In a way, you do, stepping to the side to reveal the candle. The Hunter-Seeker stumbles forward, desperate, mad. (Take it and you'll never be alone again.) You warn but you almost laugh. He's not alone. Not with the voice in his head. Not with Veils. Not with you.

(What else could I do but love you?) You ask because the real you gave you up for love. This Seeker will give himself up for love as well.

And there's a comfort in that. For him and you.

–

“Do you ever miss the Sun?”

(Yes.)

He doesn't ask which Sun. You almost wish he would. 

– 

You don't expect to see him again, but the next year, he is back in you shop. He glows with a familiar violet. He knows you as much as you know him now. 

And both of you know what it's like to love a monster. 

"The Parabolan sun isn't right." People say there are only colors that exist in dreams. You are sure his eyes are that shade of gold now. 

You agree because you remember the way the sun of Parabola looked before he died. It was his light back then, not the false sun the Second City Refugees put into the sky. 

"They love the sun," you reply, "They couldn't live without it, so they built their own."

"Love makes people do horrible things." He isn't talking about Parabola anymore. Maybe he's not even the one talking. 

"Especially when you love something cruel."

"Cruel enough to kill?" He asks and you are positive you aren't talking to the Hunter now. 

"Cruel enough to imprison." You can't help the sadness in your voice. It still surprises you, though.

"All shall be well. It promised."

"They will only take a little. They promised." You counter. It's a low kind of blow but you don't say it bitterly. Everything that the Bazaar did, she did for love.

The two of you stare at each other. He closes his eyes, steadies himself. "Ah," he chuckles, "But we wouldn't love them if they weren't so."

Yes, yes, you agree. If the Messenger had succeeded, or had it not had tried so hard, you would not love it so. If Veils hadn't betrayed, it would not be Veils. 

You don't say any of this, of course. What you say is, "A final parting gift?"

He nods. "I want to remember Parabola." 

A vine in viric curls up his leg like a snake. Thorns look like they could draw real blood and buds could bloom into roses if you close your eyes. You step back so he can see your work. 

"Do you think," he starts, "that this will ever end?" 

"I know it will." How, you aren't sure. But you know sooner or later it will end. You know the politics of the Wilderness.

You pick up your needle one last time, put it to skin and write one word. A name. The name of the Bounty Hunter in front of you. He won't be this way much longer, but for now, it's his name.

He will be remembered this time.

–

The Once-Master had promised you the Sun. 

You had haunted the Nadir like a ghost, turned bitter by being given up. The real you had left you, so that she may work to a doomed future. The Bazaar is doomed. You can't change that. Perhaps you want to punish yourself. Bring light to the Neath and end this charade. 

The real you had love, had a future. You would take it from her as they had taken it from Mr Eaten. Grief and hate are all that's left you which is why it hurts so bad to realize the Rapacious Hunter has more.

He has hope.

You are silent as he lets the Betrayer cut him apart. You expected Veils to kill him. You find yourself surprised yet again by how the whole thing unfolds. Instead, the Hunter is left less than he was before, if possible. Less human. But not a candle.

Not yet. He wants to be more. He wants to be  _ Candles _ . 

That leaves you as Eaten, you suppose. The agony and hate made manifest. You think you, too, have been betrayed. You would have frozen with him had he asked. Died here in the north with nothing but each other. You love him because there is nothing left of you, as there will be nothing left of him. He is meant to bring Law to this Lawless place. Restore the balance of the Chain. 

He is meant to be avenged and remembered. He promised you would see the Sun.

You break your silence only because he is so weak. You aren't sure if he can make it. But he has made it this far and you are left without a choice. It's now or never. 

(Knock, and ask.) 

"How can he return?" The question is a damnation. There is no Sequence for this. But you realize, suddenly, this may have not been Eaten's plan, but it had been Candles. A Greater Plan, a Greater Sin. This is greater than you, or the Vake-Scarred Hunter, or even Mr Veils who slinks back as the gate ignites in a burning white light. The real stars glisten and glow. A ripple across the door. 

You understand. This had never been about the Bazaar or the Betrayers. This is about those higher. Lure the White here, to this Lawless place. An army is building.

On the surface, the real you makes a wish on a shooting star that streaks across the horizon. In all things, look to love.

Veils is staring, not at the stars but at the figure in front of the gate. The shadow that had been the Seeker bursts at the seams with light and memories. Lacre cannot bury Law. You cannot reach his mind, the place you had made home. It's not there and neither are you. You are finished. Nothing will remain. 

But in the end, you see a Sun, bright golden.

**Author's Note:**

> This was very much inspired by LittleMissLiesmith who I deeply admire so look at me writing something other than porn.


End file.
